Canada. They may still have a lot to answer for by giving the world the unlistenable music of Rush and it may seem like the War of 1812 and the American invasion of Our Neighbor to the North isn’t very interesting. But hot damn is Academy Games’ 1812: The Invasion of Canada a great board game. It’s a five player, team based game (three players are England, Native Americans, and the apparently easily cowed Canadian Militia, the other two are American Regulars and Militia) that really requires a lot of collusion and coordiation between teammates. It’s extremely easy and fun to play- I had a full noob table up and running in less than ten minutes. It’s also reasonable in the playtime department- an hour to ninety minutes on average. The dice system is ridiculously fun, the cardplay is limited but interesting, and it’s all exceptionally well framed in a minimal design.

It’s the total package…except for the niche historical subject matter and the relatively dull production of wooden cubes and a boring map.

10 Responses to “1812: The Invasion of Canada in Review”

“Canada. They may still have a lot to answer for by giving the world the unlistenable music of Rush”

Them be fighting words there Barnes. If you’re going to criticize Canada for musical atrocities get them right at least, blame them for something like Loverboy or Justin Bieber. Blaming Canada for Rush is like blaming Chicago for deep dish pizza.

Well it does seem to be an interesting game, not something likely to hit the table in my group though. Direct combat games are a tough sell for them.

Sorry, it’s factually been proven that Rush sucks. There’s a survey that I can neither produce nor link to where these lab rats were subjected to the music of Rush and they all died of boredom and social awkwardness. The conclusion was that Rush sucks.

As a Canadian, I gotta say I’m pretty excited to try this game out. But I will consider any game that doesn’t involve the burning of the White House as a failure on the part of the Canadian (i.e. British) forces.

The map does look pretty bland, but the War of 1812 isn’t as niche historically here in the land of ice and snow as it is in America, I would suspect. I think I’ll be able to easily find a few people to give it a go. I hope the cooperative play works out as well as I hope it does; I love me some co-op games.